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Give a "Red Card" to a friend or stranger! | Give me your tired, your poor... | All You Need Is Love [1]
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Date: 2025-02-10
This is an Open Thread / Coffee Hour and all topics of conversation are welcome. How are you doing? What is on your mind. If you are new to Street Prophets please introduce yourself below in a comment. Today's Coffee Hour is brought to you by Red Cards / Tarjetas Rojas.
In church, yesterday, our Reverend ask the congregation to pick up a little red card with an important statement printed on it on the way out after the service. The idea was for us to hand out to those that might not know their United States Constitutional protections. It goes by the name of Red Cards / Tarjetas Rojas. The card reads as follows:
- I do not give you permission to enter my home based on my 4th Amendment rights under the United States Constitution unless you have a warrant to enter, signed by a judge or magistrate with my name on it that you slide under the door.
One can go to the Immigrant Legal Resource Center website and it has PDF of the card in many different languages formatted to print out on letter sized paper. Link for more Red Card information.
All people in the United States, regardless of immigration status, have certain rights and protections under the U.S. Constitution. The ILRC’s Red Cards help people assert their rights and defend themselves in many situations, such as when ICE agents go to a home.
Jump the fold for more reflections on yesterday’s service. If you are new to Street Prophets please introduce yourself below in a comment.
The theme of the February 9, 2025 service held at the Northbrae Community Church in Berkeley, California was “Love Flows from Divinity.” Here is a link to the video on YouTube: <Video Link>. And a partial transcript is provided below.
The service did not disappoint. It contained songs and prayers of hope and love. And the sermon focused on immigrants and their current difficulties with unconditional deportation regardless of the law. It called upon multiple faiths calling to help those in need.
A highlight of the service was during the “We Listen, Share and Sing” portion of the service. A member of the congregation told his story as owner of the farm how he depended on his immigrant workers. His story spanned over 20 years with one family in particular. The family’s kids helped out a bit, with the parents permission, in the harvest of peaches by collecting some of the peaches that fell on the ground. And over the years the kids grew up with a good education and all got good jobs. When the time came for the farmer to sell the property he was surprised when the family came to him with an offer to buy the farm. And kids were able to buy the farm so their father could continue to be on the farm. Not as a worker but as the owner.
The sermon focused on Emma Lazarus poem called The new Colossus. The poem was read and we in the congregation were asked to read along out loud.
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Below is a partial transcript from the video of the service that refers to the poem above:
This radical welcome is part of the DNA not only of this country but of religious tradition after religious tradition after religious tradition The impulse to reach out to people who are struggling people who are desperate because they live in places where violence is interrupting their lives. Putting their lives and their kids' lives in Jeopardy people who are struggling to feed their families.
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People who for whatever reasons have ended up in World situations where life is hard potentially impossible and that the spiritual heart opens to those people and welcomes them and we have organizations Buddhist Global relief we have Jewish organizations Jewish Family Services we have Christian organizations Catholic Charities Church World Service Lutheran World relief.
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All of these organizations recognize that part part of what it is to have an open heart to be spiritually alive is to be attuned to the suffering of others and within the Christian tradition Jesus over and over and over again pointed to this reality and some of the most famous passages from the New Testament carry with them this sense of being attuned to those who are suffering.
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One of the most famous the Good Samaritan the story again within the Christian tradition is very simple. And Jesus tells it as a parable in response to being asked who is my neighbor. ao the context is that Jesus has been in conversation with people who are challenging him and trying to trick him. Part of that dialogue is that he's asked, what does it take to enter the kingdom of God? What are the most important commandments?
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So it's out of those kinds of conversations that Jesus response is that the most important commandment is to love God Divinity Spirit however you name that. And to love your neighbor as yourself. And so in the midst of this conversation one of the people asking the question of Jesus says well who's my neighbor and then Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan. which is that on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho there was a man who traveled that road which is notoriously dangerous because it is very winding and very isolated.
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The story as Jesus tells it is there was a person traveling alone who was attacked by robbers. Beaten robbed and left by the side of the road half dead. And as Jesus tells the story there are religious leaders who follow the road come upon this person and two of the religious leaders pass him by and as commentators have talked about this passage the assumption is that they pass by for religious reasons being unclean touching a body whatever the reason two people pass by.
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And then there's a third person a Samaritan who within Jewish culture at that point was looked down upon was not respected there was prejudice against Samaritans and it is the Samaritan who when he comes by looks at this person on the ground who is bleeding near death stops and takes care of this person
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it says that the Samaritan takes care of his wounds then puts this man onto his own donkey takes him along the road to the closest Inn asks the innkeeper to take him in and then says to the innkeeper do what you need to do. I'm giving you money now if you spend more than this money in the care of this man when I return I will pay you everything you are owed
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And then Jesus says to the people who've been questioning him so who is the neighbor and the answer is the one who gives care the one who sees the suffering in the world and stops and does something.
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That is the Bedrock of the Christian tradition and that's why all these humanitarian organizations have sprouted from Christianity because of this awareness that it is part of our call as Spiritual Beings to respond to suffering to do what we can.
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That meant that after the second world war there were multiple organizations that saw the devastation in Asia and in Europe and these Grassroots organizations sprung up there were farmers in the Midwest who said we've got to do something there was a farmer who was a Church of the Brethren who had been in Europe feeding refugees and said we've got to do more than just feed people we've got to help them rebuild their lives and so he birthed the concept of the heer project which is that you give animals and then those animals create more animals and then you actually have something that sustains a community as opposed to just food that is eaten and and then gone.
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and so during that time after the second world war even in California and I know this because I met people in Pittsburgh and Anoch who were part of this that there were far Dairy Farmers in California who literally took heers hence heer project to Japan after the second world war there were people who they were called seagoing Cowboys many of them had never been on a ship before but they took goats and sheep and halfer cows and not only ships from the California coast to Japan but there were people from the Midwest those Midwestern Farms who gave cows sheep goats ships that went to Europe and literally there were farmers who went on these ships with the animals to take care of them across the oceans and helped them be given to people in these other these other places.
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And so there is this built in capacity for people who are deeply grounded in spirituality to find ways in the midst of their own lives to reach out that impulse is being questioned first we had the Episcopal Bishop who spoke of Mercy who was criticized as was her church next came the Catholics criticized for their humanitarian effort accused of using the money that they received from the federal government accused that the money was their motivation as opposed to compassion.
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and then most recently Lutherans also have been accused of being non-Christian for expanding their love to people around the world because there's a New Concept being introduced in Washington that has to do with a hierarchy of love which is taken from Theologian from the Middle Ages who proposed that our love is defined by a concentric circles that you love first your family then you love your community then you love your country and once you've got to the end of your country you kind of run out of love and there's not a whole lot left for people beyond.
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That that's not an exact description but the point is that there's a concept of love that's being introduced that says that to welcome the stranger to respond to the suffering that is happening in the world is somehow counter to the goal of Christianity and somehow counter to what this country is in need of.
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I think it's very very important that we reclaim the vision of the Statue of Liberty that we reclaim the power of the Good Samaritan that we understand that as spiritual people we are called to understand that love is not hierarchical love is about open heartedness that embraces people from all other all parts of our lives.
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There was a Catholic who responded to the the concept of this these concentric circles of Love who simply said there's no contest we can love and there's Harmony between the people who are closest to us that we love and the strangers that we love there doesn't need to be a tension or an antagonism between those love comes in an infinite Supply and we're called to do both love the people closest to us and love the people we have never met and may never meet who are in need of our support.
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So how can we do that now? After the second world war it was taking the cow out of your Dairy and putting it on a ship and going to Japan there are many ways that we can respond and all of you I know are politically connected and know the ways that are most important for you most accessible to you but one of the ways that it is possible for us to respond.
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This comes out of a a workshop that was held here last Sunday in the afternoon that Sarah helped organize and the the focus of that Workshop was to understand dreamers and ways that we could support those who are living with a fear of being deported and after educating us about what that meant there was a very specific act that we were invited to participate in and that was to be part of educating ourselves and spreading education around to people who are in need about their rights around immigration and in order to do that.
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What they suggested is that we receive these little red cards and they are there are copies of these out in the north exit so when you leave I invite you to take one. It is a way that people are empowered to respond to immigration officials who may come and approach those who are in fear of deportation either in their homes in their cars on the street in churches in schools. It felt very important that we understand that whether or not what regardless of your immigration status you if you are in this country are protected by the Constitution.
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So what these cards do is give a very condensed form of what your rights are. I do not wish to speak with you answer your questions or sign or hand you any documents based on my fifth amendment rights under the United States Constitution. I do not give you permission to enter my home based on my fourth amendment rights under the United States Constitution unless you have a warrant to enter signed by a judge or magistrate with my name on it that you slide under the door. I do not give you permission to search any of my belongings based on my fourth amendment rights.
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I choose to exercise my constitutional rights this information is incredibly empowering and what we've been invited to do is to become part of distributing this information in these cards. If you go online you can order these cards and what I was curious to see is that you can order them in the thousands you can each take one but you can multiply these you can print them yourself you can go online and find ways to access them in other ways but this seems to me to be a symbol of what we can do.
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And please find other ways if this is not something that resonates with you there is so much happening in our country now there's so many ways to respond this is just an example it's a very concrete example of what is possible but find the ways that are possible for you and know that when you do whatever it is that you choose to do you are embodying the truth and the reality of what it is to be a spiritual being love God with all your heart with all your soul with all your mind and love your neighbor as you love yourself amen our closing hymn all You Need Is Love it's printed on the insert in your bulletin. If you are able please rise.
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